#34 – Brand, Employees, Customers as the New Currency, an encore interview with Jason Rook.

The pace of change and transformation is happening fast, customers are moving to public cloud infrastructures at a rate not seen before, open source technologies and tools are enabling it and partners need to be adaptable.

These are messages that resonated when I recently met with Jason Rook, for a special encore interview and update on the state of the transformation from his vantage point.

Jason is the Vice President of Market Development for 10th Magnitude, an early “Born in the Cloud” partner. Microsoft chose 10th as its 2017 Partner of the Year for Infrastructure and Hybrid Cloud.

On Episode 13 of my podcast, Jason and I discussed the company’s evolution and growth and in this interview episode he shares what he is observing today from his vantage point.

In this interview we discuss the rate of change and growth, emerging technology trends and why brand, employees and customers are the new currency. By listening to this episode of the podcast, you’ll learn:

1. The rapid sun-setting of on-premise data centers and the shift of customers to embracing public cloud. His company has migrated 166 data centers to the public cloud in 2017.
2. Containerization and how this technology is giving customers flexibility and scale.
3. The trend toward Open Source.
4. Why he believes customers choose Microsoft as their Public Cloud.
5. How he is viewing Microsoft’s internal change and transformation as a partner.
6. Why “ focus” as a partner is critical to branding.
7. Brand, employees and customers as the new currency.
8. How his company now views the Managed Service Provider model.
9. How he continues to recruit great talent.
10. Two books by Verne Harnish he recommends to partners looking to grow and transforming their businesses –Mastering the Rockefeller Habits and Scaling Up.

As with each of my interview and articles, I appreciate your feedback. You can reach me on Linked In or on email at vincem@cloudwavepartners.net. You can also review this podcast by going to iTunes and searching “Ultimate Guide to Partnering” and clicking on the album art and hitting the ratings link. This helps others find the podcast.